Second Chance
by Mariel Nightstalker
Summary: Mello gets a second chance. ONE-SHOT


A/N: Just another one-shot. I've always liked this fandom and felt bad that Mello never got anything he wanted when he was alive.

~Second Chance~

Mello sat in a crouch by the rim of the viewing pool. There were other souls crowded around, but somehow they found room to give him a wide berth. When he'd first died and found himself in the afterlife, this had confused him. It wasn't until he walked up to one of the great walls that ringed them in their glorified pen that he was able to see that his soul burned brighter than the others here. It pulsed with lights, all different colors instead of just silvery gray, and flowed around him like a tamed river.

He ignored their whispers and leaned farther over the rim to get a better look at the people below. It was boring watching people go about their daily business, despite what soap operas would have you believe, but there was nothing else to do.

Other souls would sit in groups and talk about their past lives or explore, but he'd quickly got bored of both of those. There were only a few different types of souls. Drab ones, pretty ones, and ugly twisted ones that stuck to the corners of their allotted area. He avoided the twisted ones like everyone else, but not because he was afraid. He just didn't like looking at them.

They were essentially in a vaguely circular area that stretched on so far his brain hurt trying to calculate its exact size. This space was ringed with a wall made of a hard reflective material that soared high into the sky. There was no night or day, just a triad of reddish globes slowly revolving over head.

He missed the stars.

The pool was boring him now, so he left. Walking across the short-cropped grass, he didn't stop until he reached the nearest part of the wall. He craned his head, blonde hair brushing his shoulder-blades, and tried to see the top. Scaling it was out of the question, and since there was no vegetation other than the grass and a low creeping vine that grew along the base of the wall, he couldn't climb over using that.

He pursed his lips and kicked the wall. Placing his palm against its chill surface, he dragged his fingers along the wall as he walked beside it, following it.

He walked, walked a little bit more than that, and walked some more. He kept walking even when his feet started to ache for the first time since he'd been dead and his breath came a little shorter. He pressed on, moving at a brisk pace. The wall kept going, but he started to notice that the souls he was passing looked unfamiliar. There were different types here now, and he spotted a few with different ethnicities.

Going farther, the look of the souls changed more and more. After a while he stopped paying attention to them, glancing up at the steadily revolving suns every once in a while. He walked until he couldn't think anymore, and his soul light was a drab tan color. The grass here was sparse and uneven, and the few souls he'd spotted were wizened and bent with disease so horrible that it'd leeched into their souls.

His fingers bumped against something. It was such a shock that his fingers vibrated from it. Turning slowly, he looked at what had disturbed the perfect smoothness of the wall.

It was a door. Made of polished wood that glowed the same color as the suns above, it was bolted tight shut. He didn't let this discourage him. It was a start. Digging his fingernails into the place where the door met the frame, he tugged. It held fast, like he'd expected.

He took a step back, then ran at it and flung his foot out. His heel landed solidly in the middle of the door, and it surged inwards like jello, sucking his leg into it. He flew through the door and landed on the ground on the opposite side in a stunned heap.

Catching his breath and spitting his hair out of his mouth, he looked back and saw that the door was closed and unbroken, like he'd never even touched it.

"Huh."

He looked around, and recoiled when he saw that he'd nearly toppled over a precipice. Scuttling back until he was flattened against the wood of the door, he stared around with wide eyes. The wall started about two meters from the edge of a cliff of some kind. The sky out here was a different color than inside; sunset orange with steaks of pink clouds whorled through the sky, revealing peeps of stars behind them.

The grass out here was long and unkempt, and he felt something scamper over his foot.

His curiosity got the better of him and he crept closer to the edge, keeping low to the ground so he had better balance and also a better view of any creatures that could be waiting in the grass.

There was nothing below the edge. Space stretched out endlessly, and he glimpsed a streaking comet. Dragging his body up closer, he looked straight down. Far below, there was something faintly glittery and circular. It pulled his eyes and kept them. He was filled with a burning desire to know what it was. Without realizing, he started creeping further over the edge to try and get a closer look. This was a lot more interesting than watching the living, that was for sure.

Squinting, he noticed that the glittery thing looked an awful lot like earth seen from space. His eyes dilated. He was…on top of the world?

He grabbed onto the edge when he felt himself slip an inch towards the edge without trying. It crumbled in his hands, and the part he was laying stomach-down on followed suit.

The only thing he had time for was a short yell before he blacked out.

~000~

When he woke up, it was pitch dark and he was in so much pain he wished he was dead.

Oh. He was already dead.

Trying to lift his arms proved impossible, and he grunted with effort, trying to get them up. There was something wrong here…

He finally got one arm up and tried to raise it. It rose about 8 inches before brushing against something soft and silky. It felt like fabric, maybe satin. He pressed his palm to it and twisted it in his fingers. It was definitely fabric of some kind. Why would there be fabric above his head?

He unstuck his other arm from where it was pressed tight between his side and the wall of whatever he was inside, letting out a moan of pain as tendons cracked into place.

"Wait," he whispered, voice a dull croak. He pressed both palms against the fabric and pushed. It wouldn't move.

It started to get very, very hot and he almost hyperventilated. A coffin! He was inside a coffin!

He kicked and struggled, trying to find some way out. The wood cracked when he jammed his knee up, but so did his leg. He bit his lip to hold in his pain and struggled to work his hands through the wood. Dirt rained down, getting in his mouth and eyes and in his cloths. He cupped his hands like shovels and scraped his way upwards, struggling to find gasps of air.

His hands got caught in what felt like roots, and he tore through them, his head emerging into the fresh air. It was pouring rain, and the dirt on him soon turned to mud. He tilted his head back and parted his lips to let some of the moisture in. his leg burned with pain, so when he pulled his entire body free he tried to move it as little as possible.

Leaning against his gravestone, injured leg stretched out slightly apart from the rest of him, he breathed. He focused on breathing the air in slowly through his nose, filling his lungs completely, and then letting it out through his mouth. This was how you were supposed to breathe when you were injured or in shock.

It was a very nice graveyard, if a bit gloomy. It had some classical crypts in the far corners and a selection of gravestone styles instead of the modern flat ones that were recessed into the ground. People were entirely too cheap in their respect for the dead these days.

When he felt almost normal again, even though his whole body felt sore and achy, he leaned forward and twisted his body so that he could read the inscription on his gravestone.

In capital letters as big as his hands, there was his nickname. Below it was a small inscription. He squinted to catch the words in the rain and gloom.

"MELLO: He always lived in…interesting times? What the hell kind of eulogy is that?"

Fucking _Near _probably designed it. If Matt was alive, he never would have allowed that to happen. His throat constricted at the thought of what happened to his friends. Loyal Matt didn't deserve to go like that. He deserved to get old and wrinkly and forgetful, not die in that much pain.

He sighed and relaxed against the gravestone again and looked up. Through the rain, he could see a tiny sliver of sky between the clouds. A star twinkled at him, and he wondered if it was winking or if it was just the water in his eyes.

Why did he deserve a second chance at life? Surely there had to be someone more deserving, not that he was complaining.

It was just…what was he supposed to _do? _He'd made false identities for himself many times over the years, survived in the cracks of society, and always carried on no matter what. But now, it was different. He didn't want to re-open any of his underworld contacts, and he didn't have any desire to compete for the position of Greatest World Detective.

Maybe he'd start a chocolate shop.

~000~

End Second Chance

Review if you liked it. I am considering making a mini-series out of this, if there is an audience for it.


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